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18:52, 16 October 2025
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Russia Is Using a “Smart” Airplane to Make It Rain—and Boost Crop Yields

Armed with sensors, cloud-seeding gear, and real-time data systems, a Soviet-era jet has become an unlikely player in Russia’s digital agriculture push.

In southern Russia, the transformation of farming is happening not just on the ground with drones and autonomous tractors — but in the sky. The Yak-42D, a retrofitted passenger jet operated by Roshydromet (the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring), is now being used to combat drought and increase grain harvests in the Stavropol region.

Governor Vladimir Vladimirov said the aircraft helped boost rainfall by 39% last season, leading to a record harvest of more than 10 million tons of grain. The success prompted the regional government to sign a new two-year contract with Roshydromet to keep the airborne lab in service.

The Jet That Makes Weather

Built on the frame of a Yak-42D passenger plane, the “flying lab” carries over 140 sensors and instruments that track dozens of atmospheric parameters in real time — temperature, humidity, wind direction, and cloud composition among them.

Using this data, onboard systems can trigger rainfall in drought-stricken areas or disperse storm clouds. The aircraft fires silver iodide cartridges into the atmosphere to encourage precipitation. It can also release microscopic ice particles from a nitrogen generator to influence the formation or dissipation of large weather systems.

The idea isn’t new — cloud seeding has been around for decades — but Russia’s approach gives it a high-tech upgrade. The Yak-42D represents a rare blend of data-driven climate engineering and digital agriculture, where software, sensors, and atmospheric science work together toward one tangible goal: more rain, more grain.

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